91: The Heroine’s Journey: The Call to Transformation

This is how award- winning writer, teacher and consultant Janet Lucy, M.A defines the heroine’s journey. But what does that mean? Why does it matter? In what stages does it occur and how can we identify them?

Join us as Janet elaborates on the heroine’s journey, discovering one’s inner voice and courageously pursuing the path inward.

As the founder and director of Women’s Creative Network, Janet facilitates creative and professional development through writing workshops. She is also the author of The Three Sunflowers (Publishing by the Seas, 2012) and the new bilingual version, Los Tres Girasoles, a children’s book for all ages and the co-author of Moon Mother, Moon Daughter ~ Myths and Rituals That Celebrate a Girl’s Coming of Age (Publishing by the Seas, Second Edition, 2011) with Terri Allison.

Janet holds a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from Antioch University and a California Teaching Credential from UC Santa Barbara. She offers individual consulting and counseling, weekly groups and international writing retreats in Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru and Italy.

Look up for an upcoming episode of Women in Depth with Janet Lucy and Terri Allison, Janet’s co-author in Moon Mother, Moon Daughter.

10:40 – Soul Work
11:40 – A Community is Established
13 – What is the heroine’s journey?
17:55 – Forms of The Call

22 – Stages of the Heroine’s Journey

31 – The Dark Forest
37 – Coming Home

Quotes:

6:57 “I knew that to go onward in my life, I would need to go inward first and ask the very profound questions.”

7:20 “I really did follow my intuition because I didn’t have a model for how to do what I was being called to do, which was to create silence, stillness and solitude. Those were not familiars for me and yet I knew it’s what I needed and so that began my inward journey.”

8:40 “For the first time in my life I heard my own inner voice. It was a voice that was not familiar, I mean it certainly had the sound of my own voice but it had a very, very different resonance and I listened and I started writing.”

14:35 “I see the heroine’s journey as a universal path, a divine feminine path. And the stages of the journey are probably the ones that are the same as the hero’s journey but I have added to the stages in a way that I believe supports women’s quest…The heroine’s journey is a universal quest for adventure, for transformation, for self-discovery.”

16:45 “The opportunity that I see with the call is to listen…and sometimes it’s externally catalyzed…I think there are many universal catalysts that we share as women but the true journey, I believe, is inward, is internal.”

18:50 “In every moment of our lives we are on the heroine’s journey and we are in some stage of the heroine’s journey and maybe we’re in more than one stage..on more than one journey at a time, whether we’ve acknowledged that or not.”

20:35 “[The heroine’s journey] is a map, it is a blueprint…One, yes, it’s very inspiring, two, it’s so reassuring like ‘Oh, okay, so this is inevitable. You know, all these self doubts I feel, that’s the third stage of the journey.’”

21: “It’s essential that I illuminate my shadows of doubt. That’s how I go forward.”21:30 “The dark forest isn’t a scary or negative place. It’s really a place of great magic.”

23:50 “When I teach the heroine’s journey, I always present it as packing a spiritual medicine bag…Before we go forward, we pack that spiritual medicine bag because we’re going to be referring to it all along the way. ”

28 “The road of trials is our opportunity to be true to ourselves. I believe that’s so much of what the whole heroine’s journey is about…In order to go forward in the journey to really fulfill the call, the dream, we have to start making new choices and be more true to ourselves and that’s probably the most challenging stage on the journey.”

29 “It’s also so important for women to share this journey together, to be in the journey, on the journey together because we really need each other’s support.”

29:25 “Integrity and courage go hand in hand…it takes so much courage to be in a state of integrity and to be true to yourself.”

30:35 “That’s a really great compass to have in hand…am I being reactive or responsive and to start looking where each is centered because reaction is more fear based.”

30:40 “The road of trials will test our truth. And so everything we’ve gained and gathered will be put to the test.”

31 “Our inner fears will become interference if they’re not illuminated.” 31:50 “When we get to the dark forest, we’ve done so much of what we can…the dark forest is really where we surrender, we let go into the not yet known and I call this stage the divine faith because I think that’s really what one of the primary opportunities is.”

34: “The motivation or inspiration for even going into the dark forest is the faith that there will be some kind of a boon…there will be that A-HA moment, there will be a synchronicity or some kind of divine experience and we’re asked to hang out for as long as we do, you know, we can be in the dark forest for years.”

37:30 “It’s entirely possible that somewhere on the way we heard a new call so that’s already underway.”

41 “These circles become these really magical places where our intuition shows up and speaks through us.”

41:42 “I think that’s the true nature of the feminine. We are, we are really magical.”